Archives for Tips

Discover your style to keep clutter out of your closet

On page 23 of Unclutter Your Life in One Week, I promote the idea of discovering your style to help you keep clutter out of your closets. If your closet is limited to clothes that fit, clothes you want to wear, and clothes that project your desired image, you’re less likely to find yourself overbuying or with a mess you can’t control:

You may not know exactly what you want your clothes to say about you, but you probably have a good idea what you don’t want them to say. When I was in my twenties and leading a forum on school uniform policies, a group of high school students told me I dressed like a “frumpy pants.” It was a few seconds after that moment that I decided I didn’t want my clothes to say that I was a “frumpy pants.”

Years later, after reading Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte’s book Style Statement, I figured out a more proactive concept for my wardrobe choices. I’ve found that having a defined style has made it a lot easier to keep clutter out of my wardrobe. Nothing comes into my wardrobe that doesn’t project my image.

I like to think of my wardrobe as being an exclusive club that only the best of the best can get into. I’m the bouncer, and I get to decide what items make it past the red velvet rope, and what items don’t.

I’m not a fashionista, and if you knew me in the world beyond the computer screen you would probably laugh at the suggestion that I even think about my clothing. I predominantly wear solid colors. I have three of the exact same dress in black, gray, and white. I have three styles of t-shirts in four colors (black, gray, white, and navy blue). I have three pair of black pants from the same manufacturer but in different cuts. And, I look nice in these things. They work for me. They say, “uncluttered,” which is what I want them to say. Clothes that say, “complicated” or “fussy” don’t make it past the imaginary red velvet rope into my closet.

Discover your style, stay true to it, and get the pieces of clothing that don’t represent you out of your wardrobe. If you don’t know your style, check out the following resources:

  • Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte’s book Style Statement, which I mentioned earlier. Most of the images in the book are female-focused, but men can get just as much out of the text.
  • A lot of my female friends swear by The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style. Only 10 styles are in the book, and they’re all female styles, so it’s not a comprehensive text.
  • As far as men’s fashion goes, I like Details Men’s Style Manual. It starts with the extreme basics and moves on from there.

Posted by Erin on Feb 9, 2010 | 6 Comments | Tweet This

Why we hold on to sentimental clutter

Sentimental clutter plagues our attics, basements, closets, garages, and desks. These sentimental trinkets can keep us from moving forward with our lives physically and emotionally. If there is so much of the past taking up space in the present, there isn’t room to grow.

The article “What is nostalgia good for?” from BBC News discusses a recent report from the financial services firm Standard Life, the book Get It Together by Damian Barr, and research conducted by psychologist Clay Routledge at North Dakota State University that may provide insight into why we accumulate so many sentimental items and have even greater difficulty letting them go:

“Most of our days are often filled with with routine activities that aren’t particularly significant — shopping for groceries, commuting to work and so forth,” says Mr. Routledge.

“Nostalgia is a way for us to tap into the past experiences that we have that are quite meaningful — to remind us that our lives are worthwhile, that we are people of value, that we have good relationships, that we are happy and that life has some sense of purpose or meaning.”

Unfortunately, keeping everything from the past can have a negative impact on the future. From the article:

But Mr Barr warns the past can be fun in measured doses and for the right reasons.

“You shouldn’t revisit it as a way of avoiding the present or not thinking about the future. If you spend too much time thinking about the past, you are simply not going to be prepared for the future socially or emotionally.”

While highlighting the benefits of nostalgia, a 2006 report in Psychology Today magazine has warned that “overdoing reminiscence” risks an absence of joy derived from the present, and a reliance on past memories to provide happiness.

Thinking about the past could also trigger painful emotions, such as grief for lost loved ones or feeling like a has-been if recalling a distant career success.

Since we get a bump of happiness from sentimental items, it’s okay to keep a few of the prized possessions. Make room for the handful of valuable-to-you pieces of nostalgia that aren’t actually clutter. Get rid of the rest of the stuff that holds little-to-no value, though. A quilt from your grandmother might be an object you keep, but a stick you picked up one day in her yard might be something you should trash. It’s impossible to keep every object that comes into your life, so keep what is truly important (not clutter) and clear the rest (clutter) to make room for your present and future.

A few tips for ways to let go of sentimental clutter:

  • Snap a digital photograph of the item and keep only the image. Save these pictures securely online in a program that allows you to keep notes about the image (like Flickr or Picasa).
  • Write a journal entry about the item before you get rid of it. The act of writing down the memory will let you think about the experience, which is usually more valuable than the object itself.
  • Invite friends to a Nostalgia Night and video tape your conversations about the items. If your friends wish to take any of the items home with them, let the object go to a good home. What is left afterward can be recycled, given to charity, or thrown in the trash.
  • Make a deal with yourself to only keep sentimental items that will fit in a specific acid-free storage box or scrapbook. Deciding what will make it into the box or album can be a new happy memory itself.

Be sure to check out the full article for more insights into nostalgia.

Posted by Erin on Feb 8, 2010 | 13 Comments | Tweet This

Three time-wasting traps at work

We’ve all lost huge chunks of time during the workday to unproductive activities. The following are three of the biggest time-wasting traps:

  1. Gossip and office politics. You are paid to do a job, and that job doesn’t include spending hours of your day talking negatively about or plotting against your co-workers. When you withdraw from these activities, you’ll have more time for your work and people will likely follow your lead.
  2. Lack of training on equipment or software. The more you know about the tools you have to do your job, the faster you can do your work. Buy a book, thoroughly read the manual, have a colleague teach you, or take a class so you can navigate your equipment and software as efficiently as possible.
  3. Unproductive e-mail exchanges. The moment you suspect information wasn’t conveyed as intended or there is confusion in the communication, pick up the phone and call the recipient or walk to your co-worker’s office. What might take you hours to resolve by e-mail can take mere minutes to solve with verbal communication.

What time-wasting traps do you notice in your office? How do you resolve them? Will making the changes recommended above help you to be more productive in your work? Sound off in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Feb 4, 2010 | 48 Comments | Tweet This

Evaluate your household routines

The routine chart provided on pages 98 and 99 in Unclutter Your Life in One Week is almost identical to the routine chart my husband and I used in our house when I was writing the book. We call it our “Doland Duties” chart and it’s how we tackle the things that have to get done for our home to function smoothly.

We revamped our Doland Duties chart when our son entered our lives back in late August, and we had to rework it again when he became mobile (we’ve started calling him Mr. Motor Pants). Major life changes — moving, new job, marriage, baby — are a great time to revisit your routines to see if all of your chores are planned out so that you’re never feeling overwhelmed by the state of things in your home. And, if you don’t currently have a routine chart, I recommend setting one up so that you’re always comfortable with the state of your home.

The biggest changes we’ve made to our routine chart are how frequently we do laundry (now we’re doing one load each weekday), our eating schedule (we like to eat as a family, so food is on the table much earlier than it used to be), and our bedtime routine begins at 8:00 instead of 9:30. We still do a half an hour of cleanup around the house each night and dishes once a day, but now they include picking up our son’s toys and washing his bottles. I’m already looking forward to when there will be three of us participating in family chores.

Do you have a routine chart for household chores? Is everyone in the house taking responsibility for and completing their duties? Do you need to evaluate your routines to make sure they’re meeting the demands of your home and fit with your schedule? With the start of the new month, now might be a good time to make sure you have a functioning system in place.

Posted by Erin on Feb 2, 2010 | 23 Comments | Tweet This

How is disorganization and clutter affecting your job performance?

If you showed up late to a meeting or missed a deadline, it would be obvious to you that disorganization and clutter were affecting your job performance. There are less obvious ways, however, that being disorganized can impact the quality and efficiency of your work. Take this quick quiz to see if it might be worth your time to become more organized:

  1. Do you spend less than 60 percent of your day focused on the most valuable work for your job?
  2. Do client/supervisor requests often linger unanswered for more than 24 hours?
  3. Do you ever feel like you don’t know where to start working on a project?
  4. Do you have action items on your to-do list that have been there for more than a week? a month?
  5. Have you led a meeting without providing an agenda to its attendees?
  6. When you come into work in the morning, does it take you more than 15 minutes to start doing work-related tasks?
  7. If something happened to you, and a qualified replacement would need to step in to work for you for awhile, would she be constantly frustrated or have to pick up the phone to have you help her find things she needed?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, disorganization and clutter may be negatively affecting your job performance.

Start by opening your calendar and scheduling an hour every day this week to focus on organizing. These hours will not be wasted, as your improved efficiency will quickly make up for the time expenditure. Here are some tips that correlate to the questions above.

The first question: To ensure that you are spending 60 percent or more of your day on your most valuable work, you need to plan each day before you start work. You may not follow your plan exactly, but the act of creating your plan will help you to stay more focused on the important work.

The second question: Even if you’re just sending an e-mail or making a quick phone call saying that it will take another day to get back to someone, contact within 24 hours is essential for good client/supervisor relations. Schedule 15 minutes after lunch and at the end of your work day to process these requests.

The third question: If you work in an office that has a preferred project management software, take a class or online seminar and learn how to effectively use this system. If your office doesn’t have such software already in place, research online project management tools and find the one that works best for you. Then, learn how to use it and take advantage of its features.

The fourth question: When planning your day, schedule 30 minutes to focus on these lingering tasks. Keep scheduling time for these activities until you are able to cross all of them off of your to-do list. Then, make a commitment to never let an action item linger on your to-do list for more than a week (or two, based on your type of work). These lingering items create a great deal of anxiety, and that anxiety can slow you down.

The fifth question: A meeting without an agenda can be a waste of time for everyone involved. Learn how to organize a business meeting so that it’s valuable to you and its attendees.

The sixth question: Before you leave work for the day, make sure your desk and supplies are prepared for tomorrow. You need to be ready to “hit the ground running” immediately when you arrive to work.

The seventh question: If you’re out of the office for any reason (emergency, illness, vacation, sudden promotion), someone should be able to come in and take over your work without much difficulty. Unless you are self-employed (and even then, you may have legal responsibilities to your clients), you do not own your work or the materials used to complete that work. Keeping this simple fact in mind can often help to keep you more diligently organized.

Good luck, and I hope that in a matter of days your organizing efforts begin to show you great rewards.

Posted by Erin on Feb 1, 2010 | 21 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: Processing the possessions of someone who has passed

Reader John submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

So my father recently passed away … Mom has been busy taking care of dad for the last 2 years (and in some ways 43 years) and now has a house in disarray that needs work and help. Dad had plenty of things that will need to go and I am being enlisted to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

I am concerned that mom is going to be overwhelmed and I want to make sure I do not push my opinions, etc., onto her.

Any help or advice you can give will be cherished.

John, please know that you have our condolences. We are very sorry for your loss.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all response for how to handle the possessions of someone who has passed away. This is why I recommend contacting a professional organizer who specializes in exactly these types of cases. An organizer can help identify what to keep, what to donate to charity, and how to handle the process so that it’s not emotionally overwhelming. They also have knowledge about your community and organizations that could use clothing, etc. Additionally, it’s nice to have a neutral third party present to be supportive and caring for your family’s needs at this time (especially since you don’t want to “push my opinions, etc., onto her”).

Interview a few organizers and choose the one who will work best for you and your mom. They likely will need your muscle strength, so plan to be a part of the activities.

Based on the worth of your father’s items, you might also want to bring in an appraiser. Now is not the time to make rash decisions. The more information you have, the less likely you’ll be to have regrets in years to come. Also, if the process goes well, it will help significantly with the grieving process.

If hiring a professional organizer and/or appraiser isn’t in the financial cards right now, I strongly recommend reading the book The Boomer Burden by Julie Hall. Julie has worked with many people in the same situation as you, and her book is full of valuable information and insights. I also recommend the book to anyone who is helping his or her parents downsize from a family home.

Thank you, John, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Posted by Erin on Jan 22, 2010 | 36 Comments | Tweet This

Five uncluttering things you can do in your office right now

  1. Grab all of those post-it notes off your screen, phone, keyboard, and bulletin board and permanently capture that information. Enter phone numbers into your address book, put to-do items on your calendar, and hide your passwords in a place where snoopers can’t find them.
  2. Gather up all of your writing implements, and test your pens and markers. Get rid of those that don’t work, and sharpen all of your pencils. Finally, put all of these items in an organized container that is near where you use them.
  3. Process an inch of paperwork from your desk’s inbox. File, sign, scan, read or return the papers as necessary. Don’t put anything back into your inbox.
  4. Get everything out of your office that doesn’t belong there. Walk that dead printer to the IT department for recycling, and give your co-worker back the scissors you snagged off her desk when you couldn’t find yours.
  5. Check your bulletin board for any out-dated office phone lists, take-out menus, or memos, and drop them into the recycling bin or shredder. Rearrange what is left so that the information you reference most often is in the spot that is easiest to see.

Posted by Erin on Jan 20, 2010 | 33 Comments | Tweet This

What is your free time worth to you?

Over on the economics blog Marginal Revolution, a reader asked Tyler Cowen how to determine the financial value of his free time. Cowen responds in the post “What’s the value of your time?”

As usual, the correct answer is “it depends,” but here are a few principles:

  1. Don’t value your time by your implicit wage rate, no matter what your Econ 101 text says. For most jobs you are assigned some lumpy tasks and you don’t control your work hours at the margin as much as you might like to. The key question is whether the overall pattern of your time is an enjoyable one and marginal calculations aren’t always a good way to make that estimation.
  2. Ask the simple question: at what valuation of my time will I maximize the amount I look forward to each day, defined over the next five years? If your next five years are not so tolerable, reexamine what you are doing and that includes revaluing your time. For instance you might be an irrational workaholic or a lazy bum.
  3. Look to the economics literature on “golden rule” and “steady-state” path comparisons to address this problem. If need be utter the word “Flow” and try to remember how to spell that guy’s name so you can google it.
  4. What do you want time for anyway? When is your time ever “free”? If you choose to work more for money, isn’t that time “free” too? Only if your job is a total drudge should you frame the choice this way.
  5. Focus on defining the experiences you value most, and how to get more of those experiences, and wise money/time choices will flow from that approach.

Increasing or protecting “free” time to pursue what matters most to you is almost everyone’s top priority for an uncluttered life. Cowen’s valuation suggestions — in my opinion, especially two, four, and five — are a good starting point to figuring out this number for yourself.

Have you ever tried to determine the value of your “free” time? What do you think of Cowen’s valuation suggestions? I’m extremely interested in hearing from you in the comments. I find this to be a fascinating exercise.

Posted by Erin on Jan 12, 2010 | 18 Comments | Tweet This

Three year end tasks to take the edge off tax time

Now that 2009 is over, don’t wait until April to start getting your taxes in order. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Terry Savage suggests three tasks that you can do now if you plan to itemize your deductions.

If you don’t currently have a system, don’t worry. All you need are a few plastic sandwich bags and a shoebox:

  • Put all those deductible receipts in separate baggies — taxi receipts, dues and subscriptions, unreimbursed business expense receipts, and the letters you’ll receive certifying your charitable donations.
  • If you’re banking online, print out your check register. Or download the year’s banking into a Quicken file. Take all your monthly statements, put an elastic band around them and throw them in the shoebox as well. If you’re still using a paper check register, ask your bank for a new one to start 2010. Put the old one in the shoebox.
  • Prepare a file for your year-end investment statements, which will start arriving in January. The ones from your 40l(k) or IRA won’t have an impact on your taxes, but it’s nice to keep them all together. That’s also where you’ll stash your W-2 from work, and any 1099 forms that arrive in January, showing interest or dividends or capital gains.

The best part about doing this now is that it serves two purposes. First, when April rolls around, you’ll be prepared. Second, you can start 2010 with drawers free of receipts.

Posted by Brian on Jan 5, 2010 | 12 Comments | Tweet This

E-mailing yourself reminders for future actions with Google Calendar

In the comments section of an old post, reader Diana recently left a tip about a creative way to use Google Calendar in conjunction with Gmail. Since the post might be off your radar screens, I wanted to highlight it on the main page because I found it to be a terrific tip.

Simply stated, she suggests that if there is a future action you wish to accomplish (call your mom each Sunday, pick up the dry cleaning, follow up about a job lead) that you add it as a single or recurring event in Google Calendar with an e-mail reminder. In Google Calendar, select “Create Event” in the left-hand column be sure to set the reminder to “E-mail.” It might look like this:

I really appreciate reminders that are pushed into my e-mail account because I have a tendency to forget to check my calendar, especially when I’m traveling. Google Calendar also has a nice feature where you can have your daily calendar e-mailed to you each morning.

Posted by Erin on Jan 4, 2010 | 35 Comments | Tweet This

Uncluttering advice on WGN Midday News

How are you feeling? Would you like me to whisper? Bring you a cool glass of water? I hope that everyone is recovering nicely from your New Year celebrations. I’ll keep things simple today, though, in case you’re still feeling the impact of your farewell to 2009 on Thursday night and the football-watching extravaganza yesterday.

On Tuesday, I appeared on WGN Midday News in Chicago and doled out some quick uncluttering advice. Enjoy the clip, and best wishes for your weekend of recovery.

Posted by Erin on Jan 2, 2010 | 22 Comments | Tweet This

Creating a plan to achieve your 2010 resolutions

Now that you have brainstormed resolutions for 2010, it’s time to formulate your plan for achieving these resolutions in the new year. As I’ve noted before, it’s easy to write “Be more organized” on a sheet of paper — but it’s difficult to actually become more organized without a plan for how to do it.

Your next step may be to research your resolutions. How do the already uncluttered plan meals with little or no stress? How do they get their laundry washed before it explodes out of the laundry basket? How do they stay on top of e-mail? How do they file papers so that their inboxes don’t look like mountains?

Another thing to keep in mind as you’re starting to put together your plan is the weight-loss study we discussed on the site in October about it taking 12 weeks for most people to establish a new routine:

… participants gave a figure for how long it had taken to develop habits and the mean was 3.0 months (s.d. 1.8).

As a result of the findings in this study, I’m going to tackle my resolutions on the quarter system this year: introduce two in January, another two in April, two more in July, and the final two in October. My first two resolutions are both focused on gaining more energy (going to bed every night by 10:00 p.m. and exercising in some form every day), so that I can be ready to take on the more difficult tasks planned for the subsequent quarters. When I’m tired, I lack motivation, and motivation is a key factor in achieving resolutions.

The final task in creating your plan of action is to follow the steps we outlined in the post “Making your resolutions a reality.” These five actions are essential if you really want to achieve your resolutions.

Are you looking forward to the end of this decade and the start of 2010? I’ll admit, I’m a little sad to see 2009 come to a close. This year I wrote Unclutter Your Life in One Week and my husband and I adopted a baby. It’s going to be difficult to top this year full of so many blessings. However, with my plan of action in place to achieve my 2010 resolutions, I’m sure it will be fine. Good luck to all of you as you formulate your personal plans.

Posted by Erin on Dec 28, 2009 | 19 Comments | Tweet This

An uncluttered holiday gathering

If I were hosting a holiday meal this year, it would probably involve lots of steamed and pureed vegetables, baby cereal, and maybe — if my guests were lucky — a few bottles of wine. Thankfully for the people in my life, my new-parent brain is not responsible for hosting any holiday gatherings.

Before sleep deprivation, when I would throw a dinner party of any kind, I kept three principles in mind:

  1. The gathering is about creating joyful memories with guests.
  2. Going overboard typically makes people uncomfortable.
  3. Simplicity=sanity

Regarding the first principle, good conversations are often all it takes to create joyful memories with guests. If you’re in a kitchen, removed from your guests while you cook and work the party, you’re not creating memories with anything other than your oven. Plan and prepare your meals ahead of time, have a bakery or restaurant fix the most time-intensive items, or invite people over for only one part of the meal (like appetizers or dessert).

The second principle is true in most situations. If you are stressed out and things are “too perfect,” usually your guests pick up on the tension and never feel welcome in your space. Invite people fully into your home, let them see that you’re human and that you care more about them being comfortable than recreating an idyllic scene from a movie or magazine.

The third and final principle is also true in most aspects of life. You can’t drive yourself to the point of exhaustion when you keep things simple. Only having a few, important tasks on your to-do list will keep stress levels low and your priorities (the first principle) in check.

Good luck, and I hope your holiday gatherings are a success!

Posted by Erin on Dec 24, 2009 | 6 Comments | Tweet This

Is checking voice mail, text, and e-mail messages outside of work hours cluttering your life?

We’ve recently talked about strategies for curing your e-mail addiction to reduce the number of times a day you check your e-mail at work. With many of us in the western world having a day or two off from work this week, I thought it might be appropriate to address the addiction you might have with checking messages of all kinds when you’re not at work.

How many times have you been at dinner with a friend and she puts her phone on the table without any explanation? (I’m not talking about when someone is waiting for an emergency call, but rather when she simply doesn’t want to miss any social call that might happen to come her way.) How many times have you done it? How many times have you been talking with someone and he reaches into his pocket to check his phone to see if he has any messages? (Again, not when he is on call or expecting an important message, but because the person can’t go for five minutes without checking to see what may have filtered in.) Has this been you? Are you obsessed with checking your phone for voice mail, text, and/or e-mail messages?

An addiction to checking your voice mail, text and/or e-mail messages may be cluttering up your life. It also might be interfering with your pursuit of what matters most to you. Even if you’re not addicted, and you just wish these forms of communication took up less time in your life, try the following tips to get message checking under control:

  • Determine why you are always checking your messages. What reasons are propelling you to check in all the time? Are these reasons tied to what matters most to you? Or, are they tied to insecurities or simply out of habit?
  • If some of your reasons for constantly checking your messages correspond to what matters most to you — maybe your job or your family — can you find a way to make these checks less obtrusive? For instance, can you set a specific ring tone for calls and messages from your technical support team at work? Can you turn off your message notification sounds but leave on an alarm so that you check your messages only at specified intervals?
  • If your reasons are tied to insecurities or out of habit, can you leave your phone in your car’s glove box when you go into an event so that you can have access to it if you need it, but that access is just annoying enough that you won’t do it unless there is a reason? Can you ask the person you’re out with to carry your phone for you while you’re together?
  • Remember that people survived only a decade ago without constant access to voice mail, text, and e-mail messages. If someone needs to reach you in an emergency, there is almost always a way to do it. Portable communication devices are extremely convenient, but using them shouldn’t be cluttering up the remarkable life you desire or interfering with what matters most to you.

Good luck to anyone who is struggling with a message-checking addiction. I have to admit, the first three months I had my iPhone, I was definitely addicted. I got through it, though, by having my husband carry my phone when we were out together. Eventually, I broke the habit and the novelty of constantly checking for messages wore off.

Posted by Erin on Dec 22, 2009 | 36 Comments | Tweet This

Sort, scan, and file your stacks of papers

As the year winds down, my husband and I are embarking on The Great Paperwork Filing Project of 2009. It’s such an undertaking it feels appropriate we give it an official name with capital letters. (Similar to The Big Move of 2004 and Project Remove Splinter from My Finger, which unfortunately is still ongoing.)

Most of the papers we’re dealing with right now are from our son’s adoption. We have about eight inches of documents that need to be scanned and destroyed or scanned and filed. It’s a relatively easy process, but, even with the help of the new Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M we’re test driving from the manufacturer, it still takes awhile to review every sheet of paper to decide its fate.

We’re following the method I describe in the “Tuesday at Work: Fixing Your Files” section of Unclutter Your Life in One Week. If you’re also looking at a Great Paperwork Filing Project of 2009 or 2010, try the following method to get it under control:

  • Determine what papers you have that need to be processed. If you don’t have a firm understanding of what work you need to do, you can’t create a plan for handling all of it.
  • Determine what rules should define what to keep and what to purge. You’ll end up getting rid of too much or not enough if you don’t have firm guidelines in place before you begin.
  • Determine how you will classify, categorize, and arrange your documents. You hope to one day be promoted/sell your company for millions/have someone help you with your work, so your system needs to make sense to you and others. Create a system that you can maintain and that can easily be explained to others when your big promotion comes in!
  • Sort, scan, and file your documents. I recommend tackling an inch of paper at a time. As long as you have less than an inch of paper coming in a day, you’ll eventually make it through your stacks.
  • Back up your digital system to protect from loss or damage. If it’s not backed up, you run the risk of losing everything when your hard drive fails. And, as we all know, there are two types of hard drives — those that have failed, and those that eventually will.

(The image associated with this post is from the FreedomFiler website. Check out our post on Paper file organization systems for more information about FreedomFiler. It’s a solid tab labeling system, especially for home-related papers. And, before people ask in the comments, we don’t receive any sort of kick backs for recommending it.)

Posted by Erin on Dec 17, 2009 | 33 Comments | Tweet This

Suggesting disposal

Professional organizer Scott Roewer sent me a Christmas card this year with an uncluttered message printed on the inside of the card. After the seasonal greeting and his signature was the phrase:

“This card expires January 2, 2010, at which time it should be recycled.”

Scott got the idea from Jill Revitsky, a professional organizer from Pittsburgh, who produces a line of greeting cards for organizers. On the inside cover of each of her Clearly Noted cards she includes the phrase:

“This card is good for one week — Then you have my permission to toss it!”

Unfortunately, I’ve already mailed my holiday cards, so I can’t do something comparable this year. However, I’m definitely going to add a similar sentence to my cards in years to come:

“You should immediately recycle this card or run the risk of it turning into a monster that will eat your arm.”

Okay, so maybe not exactly that, but you get the idea.

Posted by Erin on Dec 15, 2009 | 44 Comments | Tweet This

Cure your e-mail addiction

I ran across an image yesterday on 43folders that I wanted to share with you:

If you check your e-mail every 5 minutes when you’re at work, then you are checking it 12 times an hour. Multiply 12 times an hour by 8 hours a work day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (assuming you aren’t checking your e-mail while you’re on your two weeks of vacation) and this is how Merlin determined the 24,000 total.

If you’re checking your e-mail 24,000 times a year, what are you sacrificing? What are you not working on during that time? Could you reduce your rate to every 15 minutes (a yearly total of 8,000) and be more productive with other aspects of your job? Could you reduce it to once an hour (2,000)? Three times a day (750)?

How often are you checking e-mail currently? If you don’t know, track your productivity to see how you’re really spending your time at work.

How can you break an e-mail addiction? Start by turning off your notification indicator and setting an alarm for every 15 minutes. Only check your e-mail when the alarm indicates you do so. Every client I’ve worked with has found that they will not face any trouble at work if they only check e-mail on a 15-minute or 30-minute schedule. Most come to find that once an hour is sufficient, but it takes awhile for them to build up confidence to make this change. I try to check my e-mail fewer than 5 times a day (some days I’m more successful than others).

What will you do with your newly discovered time? Simply taking the time to plan your perfect day will help you manage your time more wisely.

Posted by Erin on Dec 15, 2009 | 28 Comments | Tweet This

Teaching children to fight clutter

Today we welcome Mandi Ehman to share her tips on helping kids learn to battle clutter.

If you’re committed to living an uncluttered life, you probably want to pass those same ideals on to your children as well. Here are five methods we have used (and continue to use) to teach our four children the value of uncluttering and organizing:

  1. Model good behavior: It’s no secret that children are greatly influenced by their parents’ actions. “Do as I say and not as I do” just doesn’t work, and it’s not enough to try to teach your kids the value of living an uncluttered life if you’re buried under a pile of stuff yourself.
  2. Share your struggles: That said, I firmly believe that kids learn more from watching us struggle and overcome than they do from living with the impression that we’re perfect and have it all figured out. Let your kids know when you realize you’ve bought something that is a waste of time, money, and space. Let them see you wrestle with the decision to give away certain items. And let them watch you walk through the process of deciding what to keep and what to sell or give away.
  3. Get them involved: Although it’s easier to unclutter without children underfoot, it’s important to involve children in the process. No one likes to have their stuff thrown or given away without their permission, and if you regularly involve your kids in the process, you may find that it’s not nearly as bad as you expect.
  4. Set limits and let them make the choices: Everyone has things they hold onto that don’t make sense to outside observers, and it’s important to give children freedom to choose special toys and knick knacks of their own — within limits. Set concrete limits on toys and doodads and let your children decide what to keep and what to give away within those limits. My girls each have a special container next to their bed with miscellaneous doodads that don’t belong anywhere else. They are allowed to keep whatever they want as long as everything fits in the box. This gives them control of the decisions so that I don’t have to play the bad guy.
  5. Don’t wield uncluttering as a threat or punishment: If you want to give your children the tools they need to live an uncluttered life, it’s very important that uncluttering not be used as a threat or punishment. Threatening to throw away or give away their toys if they don’t clean their room doesn’t do anything except make them hold onto their stuff more tightly. In our home, uncluttering is always handled matter-of-factly and never with negative connotations. If I feel the need to take away certain toys to handle behavior issues, they’re packed up and put away for a specific period of time.

What methods do you use to teach your children the value of uncluttering and organizing?

Posted by Mandi on Dec 14, 2009 | 36 Comments | Tweet This

Reducing visual clutter in Mail.app

The fabulous Patrick Rhone from Minimal Mac instructs Mac users how to make their e-mail program less cluttered in his guest post today. Thank you, Patrick, for sharing your talents with us!

Take a look at the peacefully minimal Window above. That is Mail.app, the built in e-mail application on Mac OS X. You may not recognize it in that form. By default, it looks like this:

In just a few steps, you too can simplify and de-clutter Mail.app. Here is how:

  1. In Mail.app, under the View menu, select “Hide Mailboxes.” This will hide the folders along the left hand side of the Mail window. Don’t worry about being able to get to those. I’ve got a better way coming up.
  2. Next, also under the View menu, select “Hide Toolbar.” This will hide the icons at the top of the window. Once again, I’ve got a solution for accessing those items, including the Search box, that is faster and will save you hours a week.

    3. These next steps are optional but I endorse them.

  3. Install, Letterbox. This gives you the option to use that widescreen monitor to its fullest extent by placing the preview pane for the messages on the right or left side versus the default which is on the bottom. If you have the screen real estate, why not use it?
  4. Install Mail Act-On. This will allow you to navigate mailboxes, file messages, open folders, set custom actions, and much more — all using your keyboard. Using this, in combination with learning the default keyboard commands, will eliminate the need to keep items number 1 and 2 displayed and save hours each week for heavy email users.

Speaking of keyboard commands, if you want to display the Mailboxes again, Command + Shift + M will bring them right back. Also, if you miss the search box in the Toolbar, Command + Option + F will bring it right back, allow you to perform your search, and hide the toolbar again once done. See, told you I would give you a better way.

Posted by Patrick on Dec 7, 2009 | 19 Comments | Tweet This

Rent a dress for that next holiday party

Instead of buying an expensive gown that you’re only going to wear once to a wedding, formal holiday party, or some other black-tie affair, consider renting a dress through RentTheRunway.com. Best of all, after you send it back, your closet remains clutter free.

It’s the female equivalent of a tuxedo rental shop, which is a much-needed segment in the market in my opinion. And, for a percentage of what you would pay to buy the dress, you have the convenience of not having to deal with future cleaning, storage, or the garment going out of style.

From the website:

1. LOVE
Browse through our array of A-list designers and find a dress you love. Or two!

2. WEAR
Schedule a delivery date and your dress will appear on your doorstep, in two different sizes. Just to be safe.

3. RETURN
Put your dress in our handy pre-paid package and drop in the nearest mailbox. We take care of the dry cleaning!

My only hesitation with the program is the cleanliness aspect, and RentTheRunway answers this explicitly:

All RTR dresses will ship to you directly from the cleaners, without any handling in between. We’ve partnered with a premier dress specialist in NYC—Slate Dry Cleaner—and developed a process that ensures stringent quality control. We’ll only ship dresses that receive a 100% fresh seal of approval. Slate Dry Cleaner is an expert in eco-friendly, luxury dry cleaning. Their environmentally safe process certifies that every garment is thoroughly cleaned and cared for, maintaining the impeccable quality of the garment while being kind to the environment (not to mention to your health!). Our packaging is also specially designed to fully protect the dresses during shipment.

Learn more about the program in the Frequently Asked Questions section of RentTheRunway.com.

Posted by Erin on Dec 1, 2009 | 28 Comments | Tweet This